You need to wake up and smell the chicken soup. (Score 1)

Every influenza virus that has ever infected man started out as a "bird flu". H5N1 is the next one coming down the pike. It already has the title of the most devastating pandemic animal illness in recorded history, and with a >60% case fatality rate, it promises to keep that title when it goes pandemic in the human population.

H5N1 has gone human to human numerous times. There have been several family clusters where one family member became ill from contact with an infected bird and spread it to other family members who in turn spread it to even more people. The incidence of caregivers becoming infected by patients is also growing. When relatives come to care for sick family members or accompany them to the hospital, they have become ill themselves. To date there has been documented direct human to human transmissions in Turkey, Egypt, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand.

The most common source of infection is infected birds. But birds are not the only carriers. In China H5N1 is known as the "birds and beasts flu". The virus infects wild and domestic birds, a huge list of mammals (including humans), and it has been found in fish. Research is showing it can be carried and transmitted by insects such as flies and mosquitoes. This virus is very hardy - much stronger than our garden variety yearly flu strains that can live up to 72 hours on hard surfaces. H5N1 lives for 37 days at 98 degrees F and indefinitely when frozen. News reports from affected countries are blaming human infections on cats, dogs, rabbits, pigs, flies, dust, drinking water, swimming in lakes, fertilizing house plants, visiting a zoo, having surgery, walking past a healthy chicken, a neighbor's pet caged bird, cracking an egg in the palm of the hand and numerous cases of making dinner with fresh or frozen chicken.

When you look at how few people have been infected so far, understand that this flu is just getting started. These incidents are like bubbles coming to the surface in a pot of water that has just been set down on a flame. One bubble, then another, and another, until the whole pot is a rolling boil - and the most devastating pandemic mankind has ever seen. Take the time to learn WHY the experts are so frightened of H5N1. NO ONE has immunity to this disease. It can be transmitted by just about every living thing. It lives in water and on surfaces and in the air much longer than the common cold. More than 60% of the people who get it die. If you are between the ages 14 and 35 and healthy, that rate goes up to 89%. Most of the people who have survived to date did so because they received intensive health care to keep them from drowning from the cytokine storm that floods their lungs with fluid - and we do not have a small fraction of 1% of the ventilators and respiratory therapists we will need during a pandemic.

The pot is on the stove and its bubbling away.

It just makes sense to prepare.